From 5 to 20 June 2025, the execution of exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) took place in the Baltic Sea region. The exercise is led by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet and command-and-controlled by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO), in Oeiras, Portugal.
Photo sourced from STRIKFORNATO.
BALTOPS is the premier annual maritime-focused military exercise in the Baltic region. As one of the largest maritime exercises in Northern Europe taking place consecutively for 54 cycles, this edition brought together 16 Allies, more than 40 naval vessels, 25 aircraft and approximately 9,000 personnel. The exercise provides NATO Allies with a unique opportunity to train together, strengthen interoperability and demonstrate collective readiness to defend the Alliance and preserve freedom of navigation in the region.
BALTOPS includes training in a wide range of capabilities, including amphibious operations, gunnery, air defence, anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, explosive ordnance disposal, and medical response. It will also incorporate unmanned surface and underwater vehicles into various scenarios.
Photo sourced from U.S. Navy.
The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) provided communication and information services (CIS) support to static and deployed exercise locations to strengthen readiness of participating Nations and NATO forces. This ensured their ability to respond to potential security challenges in the Baltic Sea area. NCIA’s expertise enabled and sustained secure communication in domains such as command and control, maritime awareness, common operational picture, surveillance and intelligence information gathering, to increase interoperability among participating forces.
NCIA CIS experts and engineers were deployed to a US ship to support infrastructure, network and users during the exercise. This helped prevent disruption of services so that improving operational skills across multiple domains continued as planned. NCIA’s CIS support units (CSU) based in Lisbon, Portugal and Northwood, United Kingdom delivered local CIS support to STRIKFORNATO and Allied Maritime Command respectively.